Have you ever read something that changed your parenting style, or, if you’re not a parent, the way you live your daily life?
I have been reading Last Child In The Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-deficit Disorder on and off for the past couple of months. (I’ve actually set it aside for Oryx and Crake right now, which I can’t put down!) It took me awhile to get into Last Child because it’s very textbook-like and is intended for an audience of teachers and child psychologists. I’m not completely through it yet, but I wanted to share two things that jumped out at me.
The first is about something I’ve written and spoken about before, but the author expresses much more eloquently than I did:
“A friend of mine was shopping for a new luxury car …. She settled on a Mercedes SUV, with a Global Positioning System: just tap in your destination and the vehicle not only provides a map on the dashboard screen, but talks you there. But she knew where to draw the line. “The salesman’s jaw dropped when I said I didn’t want a backseat television monitor for my daughter,” she told me. “He almost refused to let me leave the dealership until he could understand why.” Rear-seat and in-dash “multimedia entertainment products,” as they are called, are quickly becoming the hottest add-on since rearview mirror fuzzy dice. The target market: parents who will pay a premium for a little backseat peace. Sales are brisk; the prices are falling. Some systems include wireless, infrared-connected headsets. The children can watch Sesame Street or play Grand Theft Auto on their PlayStation without bothering the driver.
“Why do so many Americans say they want their children to watch less TV, yet continue to expand the opportunities for them to watch it? More important, why do so many people no longer consider the physical world worth watching? The highway’s edges may not be postcard perfect. But for a century, children’s early understanding of how cities and nature fit together was gained from the backseat: the empty farm-house at the edge of the subdvision; the variety of architecture, here and there; the woods and fields and water beyond the seamy edges – all that was and still is available to the eye. This was the landscape that we watched as children. It was our drive-by movie.”
“…. In our useful boredom, we used our fingers to draw pictures on fogged glass as we watched telephone poles tick by. We saw birds on the wires and combines in the fields…. We considered the past and dreamed of the future, and watched it all go by in the blink of an eye.”
Love it.
The second thing that jumped out at me is unrelated to the first, but has resulted in a mental shift and change of parenting style for me. I wish I had come across this idea earlier.
“When Julia was very little, when we went outdoors, rather than telling her to “be careful,” I encouraged her to “pay attention” – which doesn’t instill fear, but works against fear. Of all the times we were together outdoors, we never encountered any creatures (outside of some humans) that made either of us fearful. I hope that I taught her to use good judgement. For instance, when climbing on rocks, it isn’t prudent to put your fingers into a crevice that you haven’t first examined.”
The “be careful vs. pay attention” idea really appeals to me. I put it to work during our unintended 20k bike ride earlier this year. I biked behind Sarah with my heart in my throat for most of the time. I watched her navigate shakily around potholes and over rough patches of sidewalk. She wasn’t feeling well and I knew that she was distracted because of this; perfect conditions for an awful spill. It was especially difficult to watch her wobble down a sidewalk along a crazy busy stretch of Carling Avenue (four lanes of speedy drivers) as we made our way homeward.
BUT I resisted to temptation to sing out “be careful!” I caught myself every time, about 100 times or more, and I switched it with “pay attention” instead. I’m glad I chose different words. I didn’t sound nearly as paranoid or fearful. I want the girls to the embrace and respect their environment – city or country – perils and all, and learn to deal with it… and not learn to be afraid of it.
I don’t know if it’s working, but I like to think it is.
